"It smells like an old-time barbershop"

[Chaloney]

Make a list: what products have you seen/ heard described this way? I'm pretty sure it will include almost every wet shaving product in existence.

Florida water
Tabac shave soap
Pinaud clubman
Bay rum aftershave

For starters

 

[DevilDog0402]

Proraso Green

 

[Kyle 3 Pass]

Proraso Green

+1 (C.O. Bigelow by Proraso)

 

[Chadao]

Mike's Natural "Barber Shop" shaving soap. I didn't like this scent when I first got it, but now it's my favorite. But smell like a barbershop...not sure.

 

[InfernoOrangeSS]

Pinaud Clubman always smells like the barbershop I went to as a young child.

Colgate soap pucks smell like my grandfathers shave sink.

 

[slugg77]

Mama Bear's Olde Tyme Barber Shop, I still have a little bit left.

 

[Emanon]

Me

 

[MrLara]

Col. Conks amber soap.

 

[chuckman]

I don't really have a list, but would like to relate what I remember of the smell of an old barbershop.

When I was a small boy (in the 1950's and early 60's), my father always took us to the barbershop on Saturday mornings. It was a neighborhood barbershop with 2 chairs and large picture windows where anyone walking by could see everything inside. The shop was full of other school boys and there was an honor system on when your time came to be in the chair. There were no appointments back then and the owner was one of the barbers. Only men barbers cut men's hair and women hair dressers cut women's hair. There were plenty of Popular Science, comic books, and car magazines to keep you busy while you waited. If you were deep into a magazine when your turn come, you just took it to the chair with you and kept on reading. Plain haircuts were $1.25 and flat tops were $1.50 and it included hair oil and a shaved neck, followed with a dusting of powder. As we got older my brother and I would ride our bicycles to the barber and my dad would stop by and pay the barber later in the week.

The smell I remember most was the hair oil (probably Lucky Tiger) or similar and the neck powder.

Today....... My wife makes an appointment a week ahead for both her and me......of course they are always running behind every time we arrive. We go together to a "family" unisex shop and I get "butchered".....no matter how I tell them I want it cut.......it never turns out that way. With the tip in runs over $10 for me alone. I know what you're thinking, go some place else.....

OHHHHHHH for the good ole days!!

 

[mistercitizen]

YSL Rive Gauche Pour Homme is a fragrance that I've heard numerous times described as being "barbershoppy". I love it.

Ben

 

[bladebuff]

Campbell's liquid shave cream when whipped by the old latherizer sitting on just about every barber's counter, when my barber shaves and trims my neck and side burns I absolutely adore the scent.

 

[The Dean]

Me

 

[Chesterfield]

Original Brut Aftershave

 

[ksblazer]

Bay rum and Pinaud Clubman are the 2 scents that remind me of the barbershop.

The barbers that I went to as a kid. I remember sitting in the chair and getting a dusting of talc on the neck after it was clipped. It was probably Pinaud Clubman as that is what it smelled exactly like and a splash of aftershave on the face. The aftershave scent was some kind of a bay rum scent. Always liked those two scents but never really paid any attention to them until recently.

The barber that I go to now, uses bay rum across the back of my neck when he's done shaving it with the straight razor.

Been wanting to try Florida water and I know I have seen it at a store somewhere? That was before I came across this forum, so I wasn't sure what it was. When I went to the Walgreens and asked the lady at the counter about Florida water. She looked at me like I was pulling her leg and told me I need to go to Florida. Then I explained to her what it was. She told me to look in isle XX if they had it. That she had never heard of it and wished me good luck with my search.

 

[Chaloney]

I found M&L Florida water in a Walgreens in a section on the back wall with a variety of toiletries target towards Spanish speaking shoppers. The Florida water was the only one in English. If you look on Walgreens website it will show you if any local stores have it-- that's how I found it. Large Hispanic population here in tampa but only one of about 10 stores I looked at online has it.

 

[SocalRick]

Bay rum and Pinaud Clubman are the 2 scents that remind me of the barbershop.

+1

 

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Pinaud Clubman always smells like the barbershop I went to as a young child.

Bay rum and Pinaud Clubman are the 2 scents that remind me of the barbershop.

+1

...Pinaud Clubman (my one & only 'go-to' scent is Citrus Musk), is it for that classic, quintessential and 'old school' barber shop fragrance!!!

"Hard work is the aftershave [and eau de cologne] of accomplishment". Author Unknown

To explain the 'timeless, old school and quintessential' barber shop experience...one must go back in time to a simpler (and better?), age (which our family had 'credit' because I never paid for my haircuts), when this scent always takes me back when I was a young 'whipper-snapper' after getting a fresh haircut ('high & tight'), and getting a 'splash' of Clubman and a scalp massage. To where;

1. The men & boys would wait their turn without number tickets (just the honor system of being a gentleman), to be called "

"!!!
2. Leather strops attached to the leather backed Barber Chairs (with an hydraulic arm device for raising and lowering the patron).

3. The numerous tall canisters of blue Barbicide (with it's distinctive faint smell of ammonium), w/ combs, small brushes, clippers attachments, razors, scissors and other implements.

4. Talcum powder 'duster' brushes were within reach.

5. Hot lather & steamed towel machines

were waiting to be used for str8 razor shaves & haircut razor 'line' touch-ups.

6. The built-up shoe-shine stand w/ 2 chairs (one for the shoe-shine man when business was slow), and the scent of tins of Kiwi shoe polish, glass bottles of liquid edge dressing and leather mingling in the shop.

7. The slightly 'musty' scent of cut hair in the air (including the 'tufts' of hair on the floor), after the Barbers ceremoniously 'snap' the capes (that was around many necks), in the air to remove cut hair signifying the end of the haircut 'ballet'.

8. The faint aroma of men smoking

and reading newspapers.

9. The 'manly' scent of the many glass bottles of Clubman and Hair Tonic (which always seemed to get 'splashed' on the floor besides on your head).

10. A full magazine rack (no Playboys), of Ebony, Jet, Highlights Magazine for kids and National Geographic's.

11. A blaring black & white TV (with 'rabbit ears'), in the corner.

Now, don't get me wrong because I'm not the sort to wallow in nostalgia about the 'good ole days' but, Ahhhh...those were the days!!!

"Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days”. Doug Larson

 

[QuasPrimas]

Did barbershops smell like Clubman Pinaud because they used a lot of it, or does Clubman Pinaud smell like barbershop because it uses many of the same popular-back-in-the-day fragrance elements found in other old-timey hair care products? When I smell Pinaud, it absolutely says "barber shop" to me, yet I don't ever actually recall seeing it in a barber shop, or being present when a barber used it.

 

[Wulfster]

My current barbershop smells like Special Reserve (maybe that's what he wears). I think of the barbershop every time I wear it. Clubman reminds me of the barber I went to as a kid: Mr. Milstead... He grew tomatoes behind his shop and used cut hair for mulch.

 

[FL shaver]

Clubman. It is the smell of alcohol aftershave splashed on the cheeks and talc powdering the neck after a haircut and straight shave on a Saturday morning.